PREMISE: Storytelling is more than performance.
It is event. Audience and teller interact. Interaction may become vocal, approaching group drama. Or it may be merely an emotional intensity. The play between audience and teller is the heart of the storytelling event.
PREMISE: Storytelling is an audience-shaped art form.
Repeated tellings to sensitive audiences tend to perfect a tale.
PREMISE: There is no one "tale text."
There are only transcriptions of tales taken from one telling of one storyteller. The tale is constantly changing from telling to telling and from teller to teller. There is no right text. There are infinite variants.
PREMISE: Each storytelling event has function and
meaning within its own cultural context. Your telling will function within an American cultural context defined by your setting.
Based on these assumptions, let me suggest that you give yourself these permissions:
PERMISSION: It is OK to practice the art of storytelling
even if you are not a master teller.
PERMISSION: You don't have to perfect a tale before you
begin telling it.
Plunge in and let the audience help mold the story as you tell it. Keep telling and telling until it does become perfect.
* * *
PERMISSION: It is OK to tell the tales of a culture other
than your own. Find out as much as you can about the function of these tales in their own societies. Learn about the context in which the tale was originally told. Share this information with your audience.
PERMISSION: You do not have to tell with ethnic authen-
ticity. It is unlikely that you will be able to do this unless you have roots in the contributing culture. Realize that in your own telling this tale enters the folklore of your culture. When I tell a Ghanian folktale to the children in Seattle, Washington, that tale becomes American in function and in the context of its telling. You are borrowing from another culture elements which your audience will enjoy. This is not cultural reproduction, this is cultural borrowing. Be aware of ways in which you are changing the tale and level with your audience about the ways in which your tale has been reworked.
PERMISSION: It is OK to mark the story with your own
style. Just relax and do it your way. This teller, this tale, this audience create a unique event. You are not replicating. You are creating. Feel free to enjoy yourself!
NOTES
Robert J. Adams, Social Identity of a Japanese Storyteller. Ph.D. Dissertation, Indiana University, 1972.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
To Celebrate the Storytelling Life Read ...
Sawyer, Ruth. My Spain: A Storyteller's Year of Collecting. New York: Viking Press, 1941. Reprint c. 1967.
. The Way of the Storyteller. New York: Viking Press,
1942. Reprint 1962.
Meet Other Tellers Through ...
Smith, Jimmy Neil. Homespun: Tales from America's Favorite Storytellers. New York: Crown Publishing Group, 1988. Brief biographies based on interviews show us how these tellers came to storytelling. One tale from each teller is included.
And Enjoy ...
A Storytelling Calendar. Stinson Beach, California: Stotter Press. Storytelling regalia illustrate the calendar. Each month bears a short tale.
Bibliographies to Help You Explore the World of Storytelling Further
Greene, Ellin and George Shannon. Storytelling: A Selected Annotated Bibliography. New York: Garland Publishing Inc., 1986.
Shannon, George W.B. Folk Literature and Children: An Annotated Bibliography of Secondary Materials. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1981.
* * *
Networking with
Other Tellers
Something had happened, and even as we sat listening, we knew we would return the next year and the next. It was if an ancient memory had been jogged—of people throughout time, sitting together, hearing stories: a congregation of listeners. We were taken back to a time when the story, transmitted orally, was all there was. How had we wandered so far from the oral tradition? What had pulled us away?
—Jimmy Neil Smith, Homespun: Tales from America's Favorite Storytellers
It seems like whenever stories and storytellers are Together, there's a little magic ... a little magic that happens.
—Jay Stailey, NAPPS Board Retreat, 1993
You may wish to join hands with other tellers in some of the support groups available today. Here is information to help you connect.
The National Association for the Preservation and Perpetuation of Storytelling (NAPPS)
NAPPS, with headquarters in Jonesborough, Tennessee, serves as a connecting point for many tellers. The organization publishes a quarterly journal, Storytelling Magazine, a bimonthly newsletter, The Yarnspinner, an annual catalog of
* * *
storytelling resources, and the National Directory of Storytelling, an annual listing of professional storytellers, storytelling conferences, and storytelling organizations.
NAPPS also sponsors an annual conference, held at a different location each year, and the National Storytelling Festival, held each October in Jonesborough. Under the strong leadership of its executive director, Jimmy Neil Smith, NAPPS makes good use of the media and fosters a strong commitment to the tradition of storytelling. Its headquarters houses an archive of storytelling resources featuring audio and video tapes. NAPPS has more than seven thousand members, including most professional tellers and many educators and librarians, as well as ministers and psychologists who use story. And of course many members are just plain story lovers.
Regional and Local Storytelling Guilds
NAPPS is associated through mutual endeavours with regional storytelling organizations such as the Northlands Storytelling Network, the Tejas Storytelling Association, the League for the Advancement of New England Storytelling (LANES), and with local groups such as the Seattle Storyteller's Guild and the Sacramento Storyteller's Guild. For a listing of storytelling associations in your area see the National Directory of Storytelling, available from NAPPS.
Each year, on the last Thursday in November, many of these organizations join in sponsoring a Tellabration, a night of storytelling which is held simultaneously in more than one hundred locations throughout the U.S., Canada, and overseas.
Beginning tellers will profit from joining a local storytelling organization. A membership with NAPPS will keep you abreast of storytelling trends. Many new tellers find this connection exciting and useful.
The National Story League
The National Story League, founded in 1903, offers workshops, conferences, and local support groups. Its motto is "Service through Storytelling"; members give their services free of charge in schools, churches, hospitals, and nursing homes. The organization's purpose is "to encourage the appreciation of the good and beautiful in life and literature through the art of storytelling." The National Story League has more than one thousand members and is divided into three districts, with local leagues. Tellers interested in providing storytelling as a community service will find support from these story leagues. The organization publishes a quarterly magazine, Story Art.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
NAPPS
P.O. Box 309
Jonesborough, TN 37659 Phone: 800-525-4514
The National Story League c/o Miss Marion 0. Kiligas 259 E. 41st Street
Norfolk, VA 23504
* * *
Why Tell?
Examining the Values
of Storytelling
When the legends die, the dreams end. When the dreams end, there is no more greatness.
—Hal Borland, When the Legends Die
Why invest time and energy to learn and tell stories? Here are a few things story can do.
For the Individual
1. Hearing and telling tales hones our literary and imaginative skills. We improve our ability to:
Listen
; Speak
Imagine
Compose phrases
Create story
Sharing story broadens our awareness of other cultures and gives us a deeper understanding of our own. We begin to understand some of the many ways of being.
Through story we begin to understand ourselves. Story !Rips us see, helps us verbalize, points up hidden messages from our lives.
Story listening gives us a sense of belonging in a group, it gives us a sense of being nurtured by the teller.
* * *
Story allows us a quiet space in which to think, and an emotional release in which gasping, laughing, or crying are expected behaviors.
For the Group
Story bonds a group together. The story becomes a shared experience. Sharing the story's joy or grief bonds us.
For the Community
Story can pass on morals, values, beliefs. It can seek to regulate behavior.
Story can be used to preserve traditions, to pass on history.
For the Teller
Story carries the ability to calm a group—or to energize them. Story offers you the power to hold a group in your sway.
Story can give you the pride of performance and the joy of sharing.
Each teller should prepare a personal list of reasons for telling. Know why you tell. If you are a teacher, keep on hand a typed list of learning objectives filled by your storytelling activities. This will remind you that telling is teaching.
Dr. Spencer Shaw provides a list of the values of storytime for young children:
Free for the moment from questioning adults, and emotionally and mentally liberated, each child may discover many things when books are shared:
Happiness: to release uninhibited laughter and rhythmic responses of small bodies.
Wonder: to foster fresh, childlike speculations as the stories unfold.
Self-discovery: to permit visual and mental explorations far removed from reality.
Quiet solitude: to offer a retreat from the frenetic pace of seemingly endless activities.
Companionship: to be found in a group experience or in having shared identity with a fictional counterpart or with a storyteller who does not acknowledge any disparity between ages.
Budding understanding: to excite young minds to stretch into the unknown and the new.
Creativity: to encourage little tongues to try out unfamiliar words, little hands to mold symbolic images into objective realities.'
In Look What Happened to Frog: Storytelling in Education, Pamela J. Cooper and Rives Collins suggest these values: storytelling enhances imagination and visualization; teaches an appreciation of the beauty and rhythm of language; increases vocabulary; enhances speaking and listening skills; allows students to interact with adults on a personal level; enhances writing, reading skills, and critical- and creative-thinking skills; nourishes students' intuitive side; helps students realize the importance of literature as a mirror of human experience; helps students understand their cultural heritage and those of others.'
In Storytelling for Young Adults, Gail De Vos discusses telling stories to young adults as an aid in search for identity; in developing value systems; in establishing a sense of belonging; in individual contemplation; to encourage emotional release; in developing imagination; in entertaining; in the creation of bonds; in developing listening skills; in preserving traditions; in remembering cultural stories; in exposing young adults to oral language; and in developing literary discrimination.'
* * *
Perhaps most importantly, story offers the power to bind us together and heal our wounds. Here are the words of Rex Ellis, from his opening remarks as chairperson of the board of the National Association for the Preservation and Perpetuation of Storytelling (NAPPS):
I truly believe that the power of storytelling is the one best hope we have to improve the communities we live in and the people we love.... I have seen people with different backgrounds talk to each other for the first time. I have seen fathers, mothers, and sons and daughters who seldom speak to each other laughing, reminiscing, and reconnecting because of storytelling. I have seen inner-city kids who have decided to leave their guns at home and express the stories they so desperately need to tell with pencils and paper instead. I have seen bridges built with storytelling that invite listeners and tellers to unite in ways that are more potent than a town meeting and more healing than a therapy session. It is pretty hard to hate someone whose story you know.
NOTES
Spencer G. Shaw, "First Steps: Storytime with Young Listeners," in Start Early for an Early Start: You and the Young Child (Chicago: American Library Association, 1976), 41-42.
2 Pamela J. Cooper and Rives Collins, Look What Happened to Frog: Storytelling in Education (Scottsdale, Arizona: Gorsuch Scarisbrick Publishers, 1992), 11-20.
3 Gail De Vos, Storytelling for Young Adults: Techniques and Treasury (Littleton, Colorado: Libraries Unlimited, 1991), 2-7.
4 Rex Ellis, Chairperson of the Board, National Association for the Preservation and Perpetuation of Storytelling board meeting, February 1993.
Belonging to the Story
We want to internalize the story, like a musician who has played "My Funny Valentine" a zillion times. And when the story is internalized, we're on automatic. Now we're free to give the story power—to give ourselves over to the tale and the tellin'.
—Brother Blue, in Homespun: Tales from America's Favorite Storytellers
I have developed my technique for learning a story in one hour in the hopes of pushing onlookers into the stream of storytelling. Most will find that story is fun, that they can keep afloat on their story. I am counting on getting these new tellers hooked on story. But there is a danger in my technique. The danger is that this method may breed tellers who imagine storytelling to be so simple that it needs no work. Learn a quick story, toss it off, go on to the next.
Yet to truly belong to a story, you must tell it many times. You must share it with many audiences, and always you must critique yourself and grow with your story. Ruth Sawyer offers excellent advice:
Traditional storytellers had vital pride in what they had to tell, a deep sense of belonging. Back to me ran the voices of half a dozen I had listened to: "Here's a tale that will bide long with ye. 'Tis proud I am to tell it" ... "Did ye ever hear about Rory, the robber? I had the tale from my grandad, and he from his" ... "Hearken to this one. 'Tis about Hughie, the smith of Inver. 'Tis as gentle a talc as ye'll he after hearing." Pride
* * *
in the telling, a strong sense of kinship with everything they had to tell, an easy, effortless flowing of words. And still there was something I lacked—an established friendliness with the listeners, and a kind of jubilation at the sharing of it.'
As a children's librarian I always consider that I have two responsibilities. One is to the child—to find the right book for him or her; the other is the gift I owe the book—to find for it the right reader. So it is with our tales. There are listeners waiting who need certain tales. There are tales which need to find their proper listeners. When you have told your tale over and over, when you have learned to love it and its telling, when you finally belong to the story ... then you can use it as it needs to be used.
NOTES
Ruth Sawyer, The Way of the Storyteller (New York: Viking Press, 1942), 86-87.
Stories Audiences
Have Loved
Here are twelve stories my audiences have enjoyed. All encourage audience participation. All feature enough repetition to make them easy to remember. All encourage energetic, playful responses in both teller and audience. Children and adults who aren't afraid to let themselves play will love these. These tales are not to be performed before an audience; they are designed for group play. You know the story. You will lead the playing. But your audience will own the story with you. This is their event.
Turtle of Koka. Easiest of all. Very simple repetition. You audience will teach you to relax and play with story if yo
u tell them this one. All ages, but especially grades K-5.
The Little Old Woman Who Lived in a Vinegar Bottle. Easy-to-learn repetition. A bit precious for some. Preschool, primary grades.
Puchika Churika. Repetition makes it easy to learn. Preschool, primary grades.
Marsh Hawk. Spunky, colloquial. Preschool-Grade 5.
Gecko. Active. Audience can add in characters, giving this an improvisational quality. Praises persistence. Very popular with my audiences. Grades K-5.
* * *
Kudu Break! You can use audience members to act out parts of this. Children will ask to play it again. One of my most frequently requested tales. Grades K-6.
What Are Their Names! Complicated rhythmic fun. Grades K-5.
Aayoga with Many Excuses. Clear structure on which to hang dialogue. Children like the imagery. Pointed message. Preschool-Grade 4.
Kanu Above and Kanu Below. More lengthy than others in this book, but well worth the effort. A kind, healing message. Ages K-adult.
Ko Kongole. Energetic, rhythmic chant. Great fun for groups. All ages.
Ningun. Delightfully creepy tale of a girl who follows a forbidden lover. And is eaten by a boa. One inch at a time. You must love it to tell it. Lots of chanting and munching. Grade 4-adult, younger if they aren't easily terrified.
Yonjwa Seeks a Bride. Hard-hitting courtship story. Strength is prized in a bride. Tell it with spunk and humor. Grade 5-adult (good junior-high, teen story).
Accompanying each tale are hints for performing the tale, along with notes discussing key motifs in the tale and referring to other variants of this tale in world folklore. The tale notes will use "Motif" and "Type" numbers to discuss the tales. Folklorists assign numbers to folktales much like librarians assign Dewey Decimal numbers to books.
The Story-Teller's Start-Up Book Page 9